Education

Special Student & Teacher Programs - Early Childhood Literacy

Statewide Outcome(s):

Early Childhood Literacy supports the following statewide outcome(s).

Minnesotans have the education and skills needed to achieve their goals.

Context:

This program will contribute to reducing Minnesota’s achievement gap and create substantial gains in the number of students meeting literacy standards by the end of third grade. This program focuses on the whole child, including social emotional development, health, family engagement, and transitions – all-important components for building early literacy success.

Research rigorously demonstrates that high-quality early learning programs can improve school readiness, particularly for disadvantaged children. In addition, research has proven that a high-quality early learning program for one or two years can generate longer-term gains in academic achievement as well as improvements on other educational outcomes such as grade retention, special education referrals, and high school graduation.

The program is funded with a combination of state aid, federal funds, and private donations.

Strategies:

Early childhood literacy grants support research-based literacy programs in Head Start and other preschool classrooms. The purpose of the program is to increase the literacy skills of Head Start / preschool children and to increase families’ participation in providing early literacy experiences to their children.

The grants are used to fund the Minnesota Reading Corps (MRC), which places AmeriCorps members in early childhood, after-school, and school-based settings to work with children age three to grade three. MRC provides trained tutors for children and focus on integrating talking, reading, and writing into all classroom activities. Tutors also provide supplemental literacy skills tutoring for children kindergarten to third grade. AmeriCorps members are trained in research-based tutoring techniques and assessments developed by the University of Minnesota. Additionally, they regularly monitor each student’s progress. As the program develops at each site, AmeriCorps members also recruit community volunteers to expand the capacity of the program to reach more children.

Results:

The Pre-K MRC members are embedded in the classrooms to provide a literacy rich environment to all students and small group and individual interventions to students identified as needing supplemental support to develop specific literacy skills. Student literacy data is gathered three times a year (fall, winter, spring) using the Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDI’s); the spring IGDI’s are completed in May. Individual sites and their MRC Master Coaches examine spring growth data by classroom and adjust interventions. An annual report is submitted that summarizes student growth on each of the five IGDI measures and reports the percentage of students who begin the year below target and end the year at or above target on each measure. This year’s data show that more children than ever before who have participated in MRC program are on target to read at grade level by third grade. This data shows significant gains in all areas.

Performance Measures Notes:

1.     Previous: 2009-10, Current: 2010-2011

2.     Previous: 2009-10, Current: 2010-2011

3.     Previous: Fall 2010, Current: Fall 2011

4.     Previous: Not tracked, Current: 2010-2011

5.     Previous: 2009-10, Current: 2010-2011

Please see 2010-2011 Evaluation Summary for further detail: http://minnesotareadingcorps.org/about/evaluation-reports